Signal transduction is any process by which a cell converts one kind of signal or stimulus into another. Protein kinases are involved in signal transduction. A tyrosine kinase is an enzyme that can transfer a phosphate group from ATP to a tyrosine residue in a protein, through a process called phosphorylation, which is an important mechanism in signal transduction for regulation of enzyme activity. Because kinases are involved in the regulation of a wide variety of normal cellular signal transduction pathways, kinases are thought to play a role in many diseases and disorders. About 50% of the known oncogene products are protein tyrosine kinases (PTKs) and their kinase activity has been shown to lead to cell transformation. Thus, modulation of kinase signaling cascades may be an important way to treat or prevent diseases and disorders.
Inhibitors of various known protein kinases have a variety of therapeutic applications. One promising therapeutic use for protein kinase inhibitors is as anti-cancer agents. 2-(5-(4-(2-morpholinoethoxy)phenyl)pyridin-2-yl)-N-benzylacetamide is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor and capable of modulating a kinase cascade. The free base compound is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,300,931.
Polymorphism of a compound affects many of the compound's properties, such as solubility, hygroscopicity, chemical reactivity, and stability. Many of the inconsistencies encountered in drug performance can be attributed to polymorphism. Despite the importance of polymorphism, methods of predicting the existence of possible polymorphs of a compound and conditions under which they can be formed are unreliable, and processes for producing polymorphs often fail to generate them consistently and reliably.
Accordingly, there is an urgent need to discover solid form(s) of 2-(5-(4-(2-morpholinoethoxy)phenyl)pyridin-2-yl)-N-benzylacetamide that display desirable physicochemical properties. The present application addresses the need.